Wednesday, November 23, 2016

New Beginnings - Three Weeks in Tordenaso

New
Beginnings….Three weeks in Tordenaso

So
here we all are in Italy. A number of
months of thinking about it from when the idea came to mind, planning, still
trying to fight the inevitable in the courts, and finally, the day for the
flight was here. November 2, 2016.

The
day before, the shipping company came to pack up the things I was taking with
me. I had spent a few very difficult
months sorting and screening everything in the house. 47 years, raising a family, generations of
dogs and the hundreds of trophies they won over the years, various jobs, a huge
amount of books (how painful it was to give away most of the books, books for
me are very personal things), papers, writing, photos – in the end, 47 years of
my life has been reduced to 65 cartons to be shipped to Italy.

Flying
with twelve dogs is no joke. I was quite
stressed about the trip, not about how the dogs would take it – I have flown
with many dogs to many places, and they get through the trip fine. I was worried about the inevitable bureaucracy
on both ends. On the side of Israel, it
was all taken care of, I hoped. I had all the necessary documents. The problem here was logistics.

My
friend Dana, who has been the one helping me with the dogs when I travelled
over the last year, and her husband, were flying with me to help with the
dogs. However, getting to the airport
with all dogs, crates, and suitcases, involved a lot of planning, a number of
friends with their various vehicles, and precise calculations of who was
travelling with whom. Once we arrived at
the airport, unloading and finding a way to get to check-in with the dogs,
etc., was also a big challenge, but we managed to find an airport porter with
two big trolleys who found the whole situation very amusing.

Without
the help of my friends, I don’t know how I would have managed! I am so grateful to them!

We
did attract a good deal of attention at the airport... The dogs were very calm
and well behaved, I was so pleased with them.

The
dogs were loaded, and so were we, and the flight to Milan passed in a daze of
exhaustion. I do not enjoy flying, but I
was too tired to think about how uncomfortable it was. Even Emma and Annabella,
the two podengos that were privileged to fly in the cabin with us, slept
quietly in their carryons for the whole flight. And I was focused on what we would have to go
through to enter Italy with all the dogs.

The
flight arrived at 21:30, and was the only flight at that time. (Flights from
Israel always tend to be pushed to the times when there are no other flights or
to the extreme ends of the terminals – in some cities, it can be quite a hike
to get to and from the flight).
Unloading was very efficient, and the dogs were quickly all there. We found a few long trolleys – how lucky! –
loaded the dog crates, and headed for customs.

I
had no idea how the Italian customs would react to us coming in with twelve dogs. Indeed, they were quite shocked. It took some time to convince them that yes,
these were all my own personal dogs, and no, they were not for sale. Then all the documents had to be inspected –
8 pages of paperwork for each dog! – and the microchips checked, so each dog in
turn was taken out and scanned. They
behaved so well, very calm, not worried about the terminal, and not about going
back in the crates.

And
finally we were ready to exit the airport!
We had gotten through the whole bureaucratic morass that had been giving
me nightmares for weeks! We were all in
Italy!

We
were met by a Facebook friend (yes, really!!!!). This is a collie breeder from Milano, who saw
that I was coming, and kindly offered to help.
We had never met in person, but only corresponded, yet here she was,
with her husband, with a van they had rented for us. The van was just big enough for all the dogs
and luggage, and her husband was our chauffeur.

I
still find it hard to believe the kindness of these total strangers, who came
to help, drove us over two hours to our new home, in the middle of the night,
and then drove back to Milano. There
couldn't have been a more heartwarming welcome to our new country than the one
we received from these lovely people.

We
arrived at the house in Tordenaso about one in the morning. Of course, as with all the best laid plans of
mice and men, the kennel was not yet ready, and the gates for the yard were not
up yet. But there was a fence where I
could let the dogs out to shake off the stress of the flight, as long as I
watched the gate. The crates were all
moved into the house – of course my new house would start out as a kennel, very
suitable for me…

It
was much colder than I had anticipated, foggy and damp. The next morning, I
began to discover things about north Italy that I had not really been told
before.

Northern
Italy is very beautiful, at any time of year.
The scenery is breathtaking. But
we are used to thinking of the bright sunlight and warm weather of summer. In winter, the beauty is there, accompanied
by almost constant clouds, fog, occasional rain, and bone chilling cold. The cold is not extreme like in northern
Europe, it just feels that way, especially to me!

And
the most outstanding characteristic of the Emilia region in winter is constant,
deep, sticky, slippery mud. One of the
first words I found it necessary to learn in Italian was "melma" –
mud! The land here is rich and heavy, and
the mud is thick and clings relentlessly to everything – boots, clothes, dogs'
feet…My dogs were quite perplexed by this slippery muck when they went
out. How were they supposed to run
around in this? And soon their feet were
caked with mud and it was smeared all over as they tried to play and slipped
and slid around. My boots had about two
kilo of mud thoroughly stuck to them, and of course the house/kennel floor was
invisible under the layer of black mud.

We
developed a routine – dogs out, back inside to their crates, and then mud clean
up. This could be expected to continue
until next April. No one had warned me
that winter is not a good time to move to Italy…

And
to my even greater surprise, the second discovery of what this part of Italy is
rich in was – DUST!!! How a place can be
muddy and dusty at the same time is something I have not been able to
understand, but everything is constantly covered with a layer of grey
dust. It seems to take only minutes for
this layer to renew itself after it has been cleaned, so all surfaces have to
be dusted at least several times a day.
Areas that are not, build up a layer of dust that within a day or two is
thick enough to plant a garden…

It
was a very hard adjustment for me in the first days. A move under any circumstances is stressful,
but this has been an enormous change. As
there has been comparatively little money, much of which was needed just to
move the dogs and myself here, we have been able to prepare just the basics for
ourselves and the dogs, with the plans to go on improving things as we can and
when there is money for it. As much as
possible, we are doing things ourselves, building, cleaning, preparing,
organizing.

So I
find myself truly in a new beginning. It
is as if I have gone back to the beginning of Shaar Hagai, and am building it
all again, making kennels, carrying materials, and all sorts of manual labor
that I have not done for a very long time – and I am really pleased to find out
that I still can! Not only am I doing
the things I was doing forty some years ago, but I am feeling like I felt then,
with some of the annoying little health problems and aches and pains seeming to
have disappeared. Maybe because I don't
have the time to think about them.

The
pace of life is slower and more relaxed here.
People have time. They are not in
a rush, they are not too busy to talk to you and smile, nothing is too crowded
and busy (of course the difference between being in the city or the
country). They take a break from work in
midday, they sit and enjoy their meals, they play with their children, they
walk in the woods…The first days I spent here, I was out of synch, I was still
on the modern world speed track. But I
find myself very different already, able to take things easier, look around and
enjoy the beautiful scenery (despite the mud, and the fog, another
characteristic of Emilia in the winter), and not worry about being late for
anything…

The
dogs are also adjusting better and faster than I could have imagined. Life for them here has had some surprises,
but few sources for stress.

This
will be a great and interesting adventure! Where it will lead…well, we will see…there
is time….

For anyone interested in the story of the original Shaar Hagai - you can find it on Amazon.com in my book "Tails of Shaar Hagai" - a great read for the holidays!

6 comments:

Ah Myrna, it saddens me that it has come to this. I thought it would all be sorted out in time. You are amazing that you haven't given up. It would be too daunting to most people. I wish you well in your newest adventure. I'm glad you found that many people were willing to give you a helping hand. You have many admirers. Karen Luksich

How wonderful to hear your news and although you have difficulties, it all has a sense of hope and of purpose!Great to hear that the dogs have adapted so well and seem to be happy in their new surroundings. I am so glad to hear that you have been made welcome and have had help from new friends and old to start your adventures, I wish you you all the very best Myrna!! :)

Your description of the move was interesting, chronicling the good and the not-so-good. People, it seems, were and are the good. I wish you well in Italy. Dan and I visited you in Israel, and perhaps some day will be able to do that in Italy.